Outside counsel and/or firms that complete and bill for work on legal matters are added as vendors in Unity for invoicing, activity tracking, and reporting.
It is your organization's responsibility to add the vendor records and ensure relevant settings are enabled. This includes the following:
- Enabling features for invoicing via Counsel Exchange
- Enabling Timekeeper Rate Validation settings if rates should be used for invoice validation
- Ensuring a default Outside Counsel Guidelines file is assigned if Spend Agent is enabled for invoice verification
- Adding the relevant data points and information for tracking and reporting
There are two ways to add a new vendor:
- Click the + (Quick Add) button from the top navigation bar and select New Vendor.
2. Go to Vendors from the left-side navigation bar and click + Add Vendor in the top-right corner.
The Add Vendor screen will appear.
Enter the vendor's contact email in the Vendor Contact Email field and click Search Vendor.
The system will search for any existing records with the same email address. In the example below, the search returns an existing vendor office. You can see key information for any potential duplicates, including Vendor office, City, Country, and Currency.
If you still want to create a new vendor at this step after reviewing potential duplicates, click Create New Vendor.
If you don't see any records in the search results, click Create New Vendor to set up a new vendor.
Once you click Create New Vendor, the Request New Vendor screen will appear.
You'll need to complete the following fields:
| Office Name | Legal name of the firm as it will appear in lists of values where a vendor can be assigned (e.g., matter records). |
| Contact Name | First and last name of the firm's main point of contact for your organization. |
| Vendor URL | Firm's website address, if applicable. |
| Street Address 1/2 | Firm's street address (required for Street Address 1) |
| City | Firm's city |
| State / Province | Firm's state or province |
| Postal Code | Firm's postal code |
| Country | Firm's country |
| Currency | Firm's currency (drop-down menu) |
| Estimate Spend | Estimated spend for the firm |
| RFP Only checkbox | Check this box if the vendor will be limited to RFP responses. |
Click Create New Vendor to create the new record or Cancel to back out.
Once added, the record can be found and managed from the Vendors List Page. Open the vendor record to fill in additional details, manage settings (e.g., accruals, timekeeper rate validation), grant Counsel Exchange access, and more.